Anti-poll

This is a discussion on Anti-poll within the A Brief History of Cprogramming.com forums, part of the Community Boards category; That's right... the poll is not existent, but the discussions are alive!
I have heard people argue the existence of ...

Anti-poll

That's right... the poll is not existent, but the discussions are alive!

I have heard people argue the existence of antimatter. Some say that our universe (matter), is pushing against a huge all-encompassing antimatter field that will one day win and bring about the BIG COLLAPSE.

Others talk about small globules of antimatter floating out there in space. the likes of which could negate an entire planet.

What are your thoughts on antimatter/matter. What is created when the two combine (it can't make matter and it can't make antimatter... maybe they never can combine)? Can you hold antimatter in a jar (matter)?

How can antimatter help human exploration of space? The answer lies in Einstein's famous equation E=mc2. When antimatter annihilates normal matter, all the mass is converted to energy. The energy output per unit particle vastly exceeds the efficiency of chemical reactions such as burning hydrogen and oxygen in the Space Shuttle main engines. So, could an antimatter future lie ahead for space travel?...

>>>Anitmater is created by smashing two atoms of matter togeter at high speeds.

Close but not really. Antiprotons exist already. Antimatter atoms are created by crashing antiprotons with atoms.

In September 1995, Prof. Walter Oelert and an international team from Jülich IKP-KFA, Erlangen-Nuernberg University, GSI Darmstadt and Genoa University succeeded for the first time in synthesising atoms of antimatter from their constituent antiparticles. Nine of these atoms were produced in collisions between antiprotons and xenon atoms over a period of three weeks. Each one remained in existence for about forty billionths of a second, travelled at nearly the speed of light over a path of ten metres and then annihilated with ordinary matter. The annihilation produced the signal which showed that the anti-atoms had been created.

So perhaps antimatter cannot be held in a jar... but how do we contain it then... force fields (magnetic) or something...

The technique used in this experiment is just one of many. In general, matter and anti matter are produced in equal quantities at high energy labs. Indeed, in nature, when energy "freezes", (E=mc^2 used the other way round), a particle/anti-particle pair are produced. Search google for "pair production" for some examples.